I find WASM in general very cool. Is there a way to run a WASM "binary" locally? For example, can I distribute a program as WASM and execute ./mywasmprogram and have it run?
I imagine I need a WASM runtime installed, and to somehow get my shell to recognize that WASM programs should be loaded with it (for lack of a hashbang line), but is that actually doable?
Excellent, thank you! I knew of Wasmer but didn't realize that's what it was. I look forward to the day where we can just distribute one architecture-independent binary.
Yes, but with a much leaner, memory-efficient, and more secure runtime. WASM is kinda "JVM without the Java bits" but that's a good thing. Having the VM provide facilities for GC is not necessary. Go shows that you can embed it in the executable. And Java bytecode is too close to Java code and not close enough to machine code, and so the VM has to provide a full interpreter - also unnecessary.
Nope! Much like Node allows you to run JavaScript without a browser, there are plenty of standalone WebAssembly runtimes which don't need a host JavaScript runtime.
I imagine I need a WASM runtime installed, and to somehow get my shell to recognize that WASM programs should be loaded with it (for lack of a hashbang line), but is that actually doable?